


Nothing to See Here, Folks!

by blithers



Category: Single Parents (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/pseuds/blithers
Summary: Angie pretends to date Will.  What, it's totally a normal thing that friends do for each other.
Relationships: Will Cooper/Angie D'Amato
Comments: 43
Kudos: 147
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Nothing to See Here, Folks!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [htbthomas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide htbthomas!
> 
> Set sometime season 2-ish, written before the show's _actual_ fake dating episode (!).

Angie’s over at Will’s place, just like always, drinking her latte as Will makes banana bread and Graham and Sophie play Lance Basstronauts in the backyard, listening to Will complain about Mia inviting him and Sophie to some super prestigious humanitarian award-thing that Mia’s apparently receiving next weekend.

“And Sophie can’t go, because Mia doesn’t understand what a normal bedtime is for a nine year old kid, so I had to be the bad guy and say no to Sophie. And Mia is going to be there with her new man, and you know I can’t stand him. He thinks he’s so _perfect_.” Will hisses the word like some sort of adorably pissed-off cat with TV weatherman hair, and mashes up the bananas extra hard for a while.

Angie takes a sip of her coffee and stretches her legs out. “Because he is perfect. The man is a modern day miracle, Will. He saves baby animals from oil spills.”

“I know that! You don’t have to remind me of that!”

“I speak the hard truths,” Angie says, unapologetically. “Those baby otters are freaking _adorable_. Their eyes are like cute little portals into your soul.”

“And I would have brought Tracy if this had been, like, a couple months ago,” Will continues, “but…”

“No Tracy no more-y.”

“Yeah.” Will spends a moment looking vaguely sad, the same way he always does know when somebody brings up Tracy and it stomps all over his good mood.

“Sorry, man,” she says.

“It happens,” Will says, and whisks the eggs and bananas ritually into the flour, like, really intensely.

“So what are you going to do?”

“What else can I do? I’m going to go by myself, and try not to shoot dirty looks at the baby animal savior the whole time. It’s going to be a _blast_.” Will leans heavy sarcasm into the word, as if Angie is a person who doesn’t intimately understand cynicism and irony in all its beautiful shades of black and grey.

And that’s when Angie has the best idea _ever_.

“I’ll go,” she says.

Will just looks confused. “You’ll what?”

This is the best idea Angie’s ever had. This is amazing! “I’ll go with you to Mia’s award thing! I’ll pretend to be your date, and we can rub our smug couplehood in the face of everybody there. You can be all like, ha, eat it, losers! I have a significant other just like the rest of you!” She smashes her fist into the palm of her hand. “It’ll be brutal.”

“So you’ll… be my plus one?”

“Yeah! And you could tell Mia that we’re dating, and feel all smug all evening.”

“I do like a nice sense of smugness.”

“Exactly what I’m talking about.”

“But..” Will seems to be at a loss for words, for some reason Angie can’t really understand. “Isn’t that… I mean…”

“Whatever!” Angie says, brushing off all of Will’s nothing-concerns with a flip of her hand, and takes another sip of her coffee. “It’ll be hilarious. And we’ll totally show Mia.”

Will is still hesitating. “You think so?”

“Absolutely.”

“But I don’t…”

“Suck it up and DO THIS, Will. It’s going to be awesome. This plan is 100% Angie-approved. I can’t think of a single thing that could go wrong.”

* * *

“So you two are going to pretend to be together? Like… in a relationship, together?” Poppy sounds super skeptical.

“Yup!” Will is beaming. “Angie came up with the idea. She’s so smart, you guys.”

Poppy’s gaze slides toward Angie, weirdly perceptive, like she sees something about the situation that Angie herself doesn’t. “Uh huh,” Poppy says neutrally, and Angie feels a shiver of some hollow, nervous feeling, and oh crap, suddenly Angie knows, in a flash of paralyzing insight, very much what is wrong with this plan of hers. She remembers Mia accusing her of acting like she was Will’s wife, the last time they’d met, and Tracy telling her she knew Angie’s secret, and Angie immediately shuts that whole avenue of thought down and shoves it into a small, angry, repressed little ball somewhere inside of her. Angie shuts that down _hard_.

This is going to be fine.

“Dope,” Miggy says. “You two doing a friends with benefits deal?”

“No benefits,” Angie says quickly. “We’re just friends with… more… friendship. Included. In our rock-solid friendship.”

“Uh _huh_ ,” Poppy repeats, with infuriating emphasis.

Angie looks around at the whole group defiantly, spoiling for a fight, because what they’re doing isn’t weird, it isn’t weird at all! “I would fake date any of you dummies in a heartbeat. Just try me.”

“Aggressively stated,” says Douglas. “I’m into this.”

“Not you, Douglas,” Angie snaps.

“Whoa, whoa,” Will laughs. “Come on, now. Angie’s just doing me a favor here, that’s all.”

“Does this favor include kissing?” Poppy asks. “Are we talking mouth stuff?”

“No!” Angie says, right as Will thoughtfully says, “Maybe?”

“Awesome,” Miggy says, in a low voice.

“What!” Angie rounds on Will. “Why would there be _kissing_?”

Will’s eyes are big and guileless, and Angie feels suddenly so, so frustrated with the way this whole conversational shift doesn’t seem to be bothering him the same way it bothers her. “It’ll look weird if we’re supposed to be dating and never touch, won’t it?”

“I don’t know, maybe we’re just not that into PDA! Maybe we’re one of those decent repressed American couples that respects other people’s privacy!”

“Hey, I’m an affectionate person!” Will says, throwing up his hands. “And Mia knows that. I’m like a big, awesome teddy bear when I’d dating somebody. She’ll know something’s up if we’re all,” he adopts a monotone voice and angles his arms around, “Humans! No! Touch! Each! Other!”

“Kissing isn’t a big of a deal, anyway,” Miggy says, totally unhelpfully. “It’s not sex, bro.”

Poppy is starting to laugh now. “Miggy is right that kissing is not the same as having sex.”

“Nobody here is having sex!” Angie says desperately.

“Who’s having sex?” Graham asks, choosing that moment to pop up behind all of them with his childish voice and innocent, puppy-dog eyes, and Angie just wants to _kick_ herself.

She turns around with her biggest, widest mom smile. “Nobody is having sex, sweetie! We’re just… talking about something else. Somebody else. Some person that you’ve never met, doing something you know nothing about.”

“And I am definitely not having sex with your mom,” Will adds earnestly, like that is the cherry on top of this whole fiasco that is suddenly going to make everything better.

“Thanks, Will,” says Angie. “Top notch work.”

* * *

“Why is everybody being so weird about this, anyway?” Angie asks, and takes her shoes off to wiggle her toes after Sophie and Graham go to sleep. Will shakes his head and hands her another beer. “It’s totally not weird that we’re doing this, you know? Nothing to see here, move along.” She’s taken to repeating that in her head since this morning, like a mantra, like she can make it more true through the sheer power of repetition and force of will.

“I agree,” Will says, and plops down next to her on the sofa.

“It’s like all these people have never had a person they’ve pretended to date before. Whatever, losers.”

Will hands her the remote. “Less talk, more TV, D’Amato”

* * *

“Are you okay that I’m going to be Will’s date for this awards thing?” she asks Graham the next day. Graham’s her best bud; the person she can always count on for the straight take. She definitely needs the Graham perspective on this one.

He frowns. “Do you like Will?”

“No. No!” Angie says, way too fast, her heart starting to pound like a drum in her chest. “I’m just doing this as a favor for Will. As a friend. We’re not… we don’t… I don’t _like_ like him. Do you know what I mean?”

“He’s not your Bunny Ears,” Graham says solemnly, and Angie fluffs his hair, trying to cover her nerves. Graham tilts his head to the side. “Why don’t you like Will like that?”

“Because…” Angie finds herself at a loss; she has no idea how to explain the complexities of adult relationships to him, and what she feels for Will, and why it’ll never be a real thing, and why it isn’t… it’s just... ugh. _Ugh_. “You know, I don’t really know. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Will doesn’t give you a pants feeling,” Graham says wisely.

“A _what_?”

“Mom, you don’t have to treat me like a kid anymore. I know these sorts of things.”

“You know pants things?”

“I’ve heard the talk on the playground.”

“The talk on the… oh. You mean you heard it when I said the word sex the other day at school. That talk.”

“Yup, that’s it,” Graham agrees.

“You’re a rebel,” Angie says, obscurely relieved. “Keep it up, kid.”

* * *

So here’s the terrible truth of it, the secret, hidden, deep-down truth: Will _does_ give her pants feelings.

It’s not like she wants to have pants feelings for Will! God, no. But even though Poppy and Douglas are dating and even though that’s somehow turning out really great, like, better that Angie would have ever guessed, Angie still feels that that their single parents group is off limits. Which means that Will is off limits.

And Will is so not her type, anyway. He’s a big, dopey labradoodle of a man, with a fussy predilection for all the things that Angie disdains and is bad at: healthy menu planning and prep, exquisitely and artistically wrapped birthday presents, knowing weather stuff and being weirdly into tropical storms, and exuding a general isn’t-life-grand-but-also-I’m-completely-neurotic vibe. He’s not Angie’s type at _all_.

But Will is helping Graham on the monkey bars, and he’s being so incredibly awesome about it, positive and encouraging and we’re-all-winners-here!, like he’s about to break out a handmade monkey bars participation trophy from behind his back and award it to Graham. And Graham looks so happy and Will looks so happy and Angie feels so happy, and she does not trust at all that this feeling is normal or that it will last.

Will isn’t the type of guy she’s normally into. He isn’t some tall skinny dude with amazing hair and/or the ability to scream-sing his feelings into an unfeeling world. Will is a big old goofball of a dad, dependable and kind and sometimes manic, with undercurrents of a real weirdness that Angie gets such a kick out of every time she taps into them. Will is intense about the things he cares about, but he doesn’t write cryptic songs about his repressed man-emotions or play guitar while looking soulful about it or anything awesome like that. Will acts on his feelings. He organizes and works and makes life better for the people he cares about.

Which Angie, begrudgingly, has come to respect and actually find kind of weirdly hot. Plus Will’s beard. That too.

“Did you see me on the monkey bars?” Grahams asks, running up to her.

“I did!” Angie says. “You looked great up there, buddy.”

“We’ll have him doing an iron cross soon enough,” Will says, and Angie laughs, and Will smiles, and Angie spends some time thinking about how great Will’s face is and how good his shoulders look in the fall-collection dad sweater thing he has on.

Will keeps smiling at Angie like she is something better than what she is, until Angie finally has to call uncle and look away. Whatever. She gulps down more of her coffee: black and bitter, just like her soul. She can deal with Will’s optimism, and all of her pent-up feelings for him. She is a force of nature, and Will is just a gooey ball of weirdo loser positivity. She can fake date him with no problems. She definitely has the upper hand here.

* * *

Poppy drills her about the Will situation all week, and Miggy spends half his time nodding wisely about it and the other half of his time giving her advice about hookups that sounds suspiciously made up. Douglas claps her on the back and tells her to be smart, and then the twins hand her a shop vac and tell her she should clean up her bedroom, and to be thorough about it.

“Thanks?” Angie says, holding the shop vac with one hand.

“Just get it done,” Emma says, and Amy nods. “We’ll be auditing you at the next sleepover.”

Will seems wholly unconcerned with their upcoming date, as far as Angie can tell. She tries to press him on it, tries to tell him that they need to spend time making sure they’re not going to blow their cover, but Will just shrugs and says that he knows everything about Angie anyway, so what else is there to go over? Which really throws her for a loop.

“I mean, sex,” Angie tries. Even saying the word in front of Will gives her a giddy little thrill. God, she’s got it so bad, it’s so embarrassing. “We’ve never had sex, so you don’t know everything there is to know about me.”

Will works his mouth open and shut a couple times, then says, “Nobody is going to drill us on our sex life.”

“Drill us, huh?”

“Don’t be gross.”

“Maybe I’m into the gross stuff.” Angie isn’t even sure why she’s pushing this point and basically trying to bait Will. He’s just been so annoyingly blasé about the whole thing, and Angie is more and more nervous the deeper they get. So yeah, sue her: she wants to rattle him.

To her surprise, Will doesn’t bat an eye. “You’re into the gross stuff? Kinky.”

Angie raises an eyebrow. “Maybe. You really don’t think we need to discuss anything more about this?”

“I think I know me some Angie D’Amato stuff,” Will says. “I’ve got you, boo.”

* * *

Which is how Angie ends up ringing Will’s doorbell a couple days later, smoothing a hand uncomfortably down her dress. It’s red and tight and totally not Angie’s style, but Poppy had wolf-whistled when she’d tried it on, Graham had applauded like she was the prettiest mom ever, and Rory had snapped his fingers and said “get it, girl!” so here she was. Angie had bought the dress with the last of that week’s paycheck and stuck it in her closet and hadn’t thought about it again until an hour ago, when she’d pulled it out and instantly regretted all the decisions she’d ever made in her entire life. _Why_.

Will swings the door open in a suit, his tie undone around his neck, in the middle of saying, “Sophie, we’re not -” and then falls silent, seeing her.

Angie sucks in her stomach and tries to smile.

Will’s eyes flit down, and then pop immediately back up to her face, panicked, and Angie’s smile becomes a little bit more real because yeah, she’s pretty sure he just checked her out. She’s still got it! Eat it, mom magazines! Suck it, confusing friend-crush!

“Angie! You -” His voice trails off, and the panic in his eyes intensifies.

“I know I look good,” Angie forces herself to say. “No need to embarrass yourself, dude.”

Will laughs, but it sounds strained. “Right. You look gorgeous, Angie.”

Angie is super afraid she’s blushing now, which is _so_ not hardcore. “You don’t look half-bad yourself.” And it’s true: Will always looks great in a suit, and the loose tie around his neck is totally doing it for her. And he’s grown his facial hair out in the last couple days again, like he knows that Angie’s weak for Will with a beard, the way that it strengthens the angles of his baby face and brings out the pretty grey-green of his eyes.

“Come on in,” Will says, and opens up the door the rest of the way. “Sophie was just about to help me with my tie.”

“I’ve been prepping on YouTube all afternoon!” Sophie yells from the living room, surrounded by a giant pile of stuffed animals, all decked out in business ties with crooked-looking half Windsors.

“Angie,” Will whispers with wide eyes, “there’s so much awful stuff I have to keep her away from on YouTube.”

Sophie manages a respectable knot after fifteen minutes or so, with overlapping and mostly contradictory advice from Will and Angie. Then they load everybody up in Will’s car and drop Sophie off at Poppy’s, where Graham has already been all afternoon, and Angie has to hug Graham again for a really long time, like, a _really_ long time, before they’re able to finally leave.

It’s when they’re on the freeway, Will fiddling the radio between the ten million adult easy listening stations that all sound exactly the same, that Angie realizes how surreal this whole thing is: the two of them, Will and Angie, in grown-up clothes, like they’re both actual hot, attractive grown-ups who do sexy, mature grown-up things, instead of hanging out with their kids while wearing sweatpants and glitter-spattered plaid shirts like the dorky, mostly-overwhelmed single parents they both actually are.

“Hey Will,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad we’re doing this.”

Will glances over at her, but his gaze slides over in a funny sort of way, like he’s trying not to look at her too closely after getting caught blatantly eyeing her up before, but also he is _definitely_ checking her out again. Angie feels a flush of satisfaction, all up and down her body. Poppy was so right about this dress.

But he only says “Yeah?” in a mild, very Will Cooper-y tone, and then he’s back to watching the road in front of them like it never happened. Angie tells herself sternly to keep it together.

“Yeah. And not just so you don’t have to be sad and single in front of Mia. I mean, look at us - we look _good_ , bro. We are crushing it in the adult department right now.”

“We are crushing it, aren’t we?”

“Yeah! High five for us.”

“You know I can’t resist a high five.” They slap hands fast, Will still driving down the freeway. “Thanks for coming to this thing with me, Angie. I don’t know if I’ve actually said that yet, but it means a lot. I appreciate it.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” Angie says, and means it.

* * *

The banquet is intimidatingly fancy. 

“Oh my god, I take back everything I said before. You should have brought Douglas to this thing instead of me. I need somebody to tell me which fork to use and which one to stab out my eyes with.”

Will pauses with an appetizer halfway to his mouth. “You’re supposed to use a fork to eat these things?”

“I don’t know! Maybe! That’s what I’m saying, we need some Douglas-knowledge up in this bitch.”

They spot Mia on the other side of the room, talking to people in tuxes and ball gowns and laughing, with her beautiful white teeth and her beautiful smile and her perfect, globally-conscious humanitarian life, with her new man on her arm. The guy is basically a movie star: it’s surreal how handsome the dude is, like if Captain America had an even hotter ambiguously-British brother.

Mia spots them and gives a wave, heading in their direction.

“Will!” Mia exclaims, and Will kisses her gallantly on the cheek. Angie clamps down on hard on a little wiggle of some traitorous feeling she will die before admitting is jealousy. “I’m so glad you could make it! And…” Mia turns her megawatt smile on her, “Angela!”

“Angie,” Angie says.

“Right!” Mia says, like she never said anything different “Angie! I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Angie and I are dating,” Will says, and throws an arm over Angie’s shoulder. “Boning on the regular, as the kids say - that’s us.”

“This man right here gives it to me good,” Angie agrees, trying to leer a little when she says it, but, like, only a little bit. A classy leer, suitable for the occasion.

“How wonderful for you two of you!” Mia says, still beaming. “Will, have you met Anthony?”

“You know I have,” Will mutters, but he holds out his hand to shake Anthony’s.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Will,” Anthony says, in some sort of hard-to-place yet incredibly sexy posh accent. “It’s been far too long.”

“I was so sad that Sophie couldn’t come tonight,” Mia says, with all her bright, oblivious enthusiasm.

“I told Sophie I’d text her video of you accepting your award,” Will says, and Angie thinks it’s pretty decent of Will to not mention that Sophie is probably already asleep for the night.

“So how long have you two been together?” Anthony asks Will and Angie.

Angie shoots a panicked look at Will (she _knew_ they should have discussed dating stuff!) but Will just says, “Oh, a couple months now.”

“I finally realized what I’d been missing,” Angie says, and flickers her eyes suggestively over at Will before she thinks better of it.

“Charming!” Anthony says, and amazingly enough it sounds like he really means it, god, the man is so nice, it’s practically unreal.

“But I think we both knew this was a thing for longer than that,” Will adds sincerely, and pulls Angie in closer to him, and Angie tries not to let her nervousness show.

“It’s always better when you’re friends first,” Mia agrees, laughing and placing a hand on Anthony’s arm. Angie laughs along with her a little too loudly, and Will joins in on the awkward laughter, and they’re like a bunch of super villains all of a sudden, laughing at an evil plan and all reading off the same bad script.

“It was great to see you both,” Mia says, after the laughter dies down and Angie spends a few precious seconds wanting to shrivel up and die. “And it’s so nice to see the two of you together. I’m so glad you could both make it tonight.”

“Great to see you again, Will,” Anthony says. “And it was wonderful to meet you, Angie.”

“Congratulations,” Will says to Mia. “We’ll be cheering for you when they announce your name.”

“Wonderful!” Mia says, and with one more blinding smile she’s gone.

* * *

Angie’s feeling pretty good about life. The dinner was delicious, the boring awards part of the evening was blessedly short, and the pretend-to-be-dating thing with Mia is past the weird first meeting. You’d think everything was coming up Will Cooper in this situation, but Will keeps spacing out next to her, picking at his plate disconsolately. Angie has to remind him to film Mia’s acceptance speech for Sophie, which is basically a role reversal of their entire lives so far. Desserts and coffee go around and Angie doubles-down on both the caffeine and sugar, then throws a wadded up napkin at Will.

“Ground control to Major Tom. Earth to Will Cooper. What’s up with you?”

“Sorry.” Will sighs. “Sorry. I know I’m being such a down-in-the-dumps grump -”

“Exactly the term I was going to use.”

“- But I just keep thinking about this whole evening.”

“What about it?”

“Life. Death. Marriage, children, divorce, the slow dissolution of everything we know to be true. Entropy and the eventual heat death of the universe. That sort of thing.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know I was eating dinner with a depressed, lonely Stephen Hawkings. Okay, really, what’s up?”

“Honestly?”

“Unless you feel like making something up, in which case it better be good.”

Will sighs again. “I was thinking… honestly, I was thinking about how I thought that Mia would care more about me dating you. About me seriously dating anybody, really. I mean, it was awkward, but it also didn’t seem to really register. Which just makes me wonder why I even cared in the first place.”

Angie pokes at her miniature cheesecake. “I get it. You were making out with her not even a year ago. And she’s Sophie’s mom.” 

“I just wish I didn’t care so much about what Mia thinks about my life.”

“Mia’s an amazing woman.” Angie sort of wishes that she could be all catty and mean about Will’s ex, but the depressing, everyday, normal-life truth of it is that Mia doesn’t really deserve that level of vindictiveness. She might be a somewhat flighty, mostly absent mom who probably votes Green Party straight ticket, but she’s also a pretty good person: situations where nobody is the villain are the worst, really.

“Mia was always amazing at everything except being married to me,” Will says, quieter than normal. The truth of that statement, the sheer simplicity of it, hurts even Angie.

“Hey. _Hey_.” Angie snaps her fingers in front of Will. “You saw me with Derek. The man literally abandoned me at a bus station while I was pregnant with his unborn child and then I met him again and I still wanted to fuck his brains out. It makes zero sense. I _get_ it. These people in our past, of course they did a number on us. And because we love Graham and Sophie, we’ll never be truly free of them. And, honestly, that sucks. It sucks a lot.”

“It does suck, doesn’t it.”

“That’s what I said.”

“When did you get so wise?”

“Old age, baby. I’m on the shelf now, so wisdom flows out of me like a river.”

“You’re not on the shelf, and you know it.”

“Look at you, giving a girl a compliment.”

The party’s moving in full swing around them, as dessert plates are cleared and a band starts up now that the dinner and presentation portion of the evening is over. Angie flags down a waiter and snags another glass of wine.

“If I’m being honest,” Will says, watching people drift onto the dance floor, “I thought that Mia would especially care that it was you who was my date tonight.”

“What? Why?”

“Because she was always… suspicious. Of our relationship. She asked a lot of questions about you when she stayed with us last year, when we were finalizing our divorce.”

Angie gulps some wine and settles on a neutral tone. “Did she?”

“She did. She asked the same kind of questions that people always seem to ask about us. You know, _who is this woman_ and _why does she seem to live at your house_ and _why is she your emergency contact_ , that sort of thing.”

Angie forces herself to snort decisively. “Amateurs.”

Will is fiddling with his napkin, folding it over and over itself, lost in his thoughts again. Angie concentrates on breathing normally and trying not to look like she’s totally busted, because oh god, she is _so busted_. Will is going to know how she feels about him and laugh at her and never want to be her friend again, and then _everybody_ is going to know, and Graham is going to know that she’s been lying to him about her pants feelings for Will, and -

“You want to dance?” Will asks.

Angie yanks herself out of her shame spiral to see Will, holding out a hand to her, like the start to one of her he’s-such-a-good-guy-only-it-deteriorates-into-fantastic-dirty-sex fantasies.

Angie coughs, then says, “What is this, prom?”

“Only if I’m about to run away nervously after accidentally touching your boob halfway through the first dance.”

“Ooh. Smooth move, Cooper.”

“What can I say, sixteen year old me was a beast with the ladies.”

“Well, if we’re talking senior prom for me, I ended up making out with Jimmy O’Schmidt in the boy’s bathroom next to the last urinal and then throwing up all over his shoes.”

“Hot.”

“You’re not the only one with moves.”

Will holds his hand out again and Angie takes it before she thinks better of it, and the next thing she knows they’re awkwardly sway-dancing like old people to some cover of a song that Will keeps singing along with under his breath. It’s dumb, it’s _so dumb_ , but it’s also incredibly nice. Will smells good this close up, like good dude cologne and clean laundry, and his hands are warm and big against her waist. His voice in her ear is low and smooth and scratchy sounding all at the same time. (It’s not like the man could really be a singer, because if Angie knows anything it’s that Will could never scream along to metal AKA the only music that really matters, but this old man Douglas-style singing is sort of doing for her, anyway.)

“Hey Will,” she whispers, after a bit.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t look now, but Mia’s watching us.”

Will’s hand moves against her waist, but he doesn’t twist around to look, like the pro that he is. “Really?”

“Really.” They sway together a little more, and Angie reaches up to tug at Will’s tie. “You want to mess with her a little?”

“What are you thinking?” Will asks back in a low voice, and before Angie can second-guess or talk herself out of it, she goes up on tiptoes and tugs him down to meet her part way and kisses him.

Will goes very still for a moment, then slides his hand around her waist and leans into the kiss. Their lips slide move slowly against each other, closed-mouth and chaste, and something goes terribly weak in Angie’s knees. Her head starts to spin.

If she closes her eyes, it might even be real.

She’s wanted to kiss Will for forever. She’s so sick of pretending, so _sick_ of it, but she’ll take this moment if this is how it’s given to her; she might not get another chance, after all.

The kiss is quiet, and ends slowly. Angie can’t hear anything beyond the rush of blood in her ears, the noise of the room echoing distantly around the two of them. Will is breathing hard, staring down at her, his expression flushed but otherwise unreadable. He licks his lips.

“Angie…” he starts to say.

“Good job psyching Mia out,” Angie makes herself say, cutting him off. “Ha ha. We really did it.”

Will doesn’t say anything, and they keep dancing, lost in each other’s physical space and their own separate thoughts.

When Angie finally remembers to check what Mia’s reaction actually was, she’s gone.

* * *

They arrive back at Will’s house after midnight, and Angie turns on the table lamp as they both flop back onto Will’s couch. Angie kicks off her heels and points her toes to stretch out her aching feet. Will loosens his tie and throws it over the recliner in the corner.

“Thanks for being my pretend girlfriend tonight,” Will says. He sounds a bit cautious, the way he’s been treating her the whole ride home, like he isn’t quite sure what will spook her and what will make things normal between them again.

“Thanks for being an awesome pretend boyfriend,” Angie says. “You knocked it out of the park, man.”

They haven’t talked about the kiss. Angie doesn’t even know how to bring it up. It keeps hanging in the air between them, this unspoken, huge thing.

Will flips on the TV, and Angie stretches out, slouching in her fancy dress, which is when Angie notices something really, really interesting: Will keeps staring at her mouth, when he thinks she’s not paying attention to him.

She crowds into his space a little, just to see his reaction. He starts to breath faster.

“Angie,” he says, “what are you -”

“Shut up, Will,” she says, buzzed on life and everything that’s happened so far this evening and, somehow, the episode of House Hunters they’d put on to make fun of. What, she really likes House Hunters, it pumps her up.

Will is flat-out staring at her mouth now, and not even trying to hide it. Wow. _Wow_. Sure, they’re just pretending to be dating, but maybe pretending extends to something more, just for a little while. Angie feels like she’s cheating life, even thinking about the idea.

“Why should I shut up?” he asks, and Angie decides to go for it.

“Because I have a better idea for what you should be doing with your mouth,” Angie says, giving Will her sexiest come-hither look. It sounds so cool in her head, super sexy, but it ends up pretty dorky when she actually says it. She winces.

But Will doesn’t seem to notice how awkward she is, or remember that Angie is going to turn into a gross slacker pumpkin again once she takes her red ball gown off, or any of that stuff. His eyes go black, dilated wide.

“You want to make out?” she asks, cutting to the chase.

Will swallows, and she knows, she just _knows_ , he’s thinking about their kiss again, from earlier. “With my pretend girlfriend?”

“We can pretend make out, if that makes you feel better,” Angie offers. “My only condition is that we use our real mouths, because otherwise I don’t really -”

And then Angie cuts off, because Will is kissing her, _hard_ , his mouth shoved up against her own.

Angie breathes out in surprise, and Will backs off almost immediately, like he forgot himself for a fast moment and kissed her with nothing but unthinking instinct. But Angie chases his lips, coaxing him back in, and slides her mouth open a bit to see if Will wants to french for a while, like the actual adults that they are, something more than their chaste kiss earlier.

It turns out Will is good at kissing. Shockingly good. _Amazingly_ good. He kisses like a man drowning, like he can’t believe how great he’s got it, like making out with sad single parent Angie D’Amato is the highlight of his fucking life. It’s the singular focus Will gives developing warm weather fronts and Sophie’s after school snack schedule and now, kissing Angie on his couch like his life depends on it.

Angie is so weak for this. The thrill of it runs all the way to her toes.

They make out on for a while like teenagers, long enough that Angie’s lips actually start to get a little chapped, and her foot ends up all twisted in Will’s crocheted afghan draped across the back of the couch. His beard keeps rasping her up, turning her skin a bit pink. She’s panting for this, super turned on by this whole high school make out thing they’ve got going on.

Will’s not making any moves except feeling her up a bit. Angie wants to go after the obvious erection Will has, but the one time her hand starts to drift in the downward direction Will grabs it and sucks on Angie’s fingers instead until her eyes roll back in her head. She gets it - he probably doesn’t want to do anything they can’t take back. They’re just two friends making out, after all. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.

It’s dark in the Cooper living room, the TV flickering soft light all around them. The autoplay has moved on from House Hunters to the HGTV renovation show that Angie keeps meaning to suggest she and Will watch, the one with the mom and daughter who fix up old houses or whatever. They’re lying down now, and Will has shifted his weight on top of Angie. He feels solid and warm pressed down against her body.

God, it’s been a while since she’s dated a guy as big as Will. He feels _great_.

Angie’s rapidly forgetting herself. She’s forgetting that she’s scared of her feelings for Will and he’ll probably never talk to her again after tonight because one or both of them is definitely going to freak out. She forgets that she’s only pretending to be Will’s girlfriend for a single night in the first place.

Will wraps his hand part way around her neck, attempting to angle her head, and the feeling of his palm hot against her throat is suffocatingly good. Angie moans, like, straight-up really _moans_ at that, and even to her hazed mind it sounds shockingly sexual, after their mostly high school-level make out sesh. Will’s breath stutters.

He pulls back from her, and buries his face in his hands.

“I need a minute,” he finally chokes out.

Right. Right.

Angie starts to pull back to give Will the space he’s so obviously asking for, but Will reaches a hand out and pulls her into his side, like he instinctively knows she’s about to run. Will’s breath is starting to slow down, although he’s still hunched over his lap pretty awkwardly. Angie’s blood is singing in her veins, and she is so ridiculously turned on, and she has to let that feeling sit.

They stay pressed up against each other, together, side by side, as the night grows quiet and dark around them.

* * *

Angie wakes up to sun shining through the windows, Will sleeping behind her, and Poppy, Sophie, and Graham framed in the front door, staring open-mouthed at the whole Will-and-Angie-spooning-on-the-couch situation.

“Oh shit,” Angie says. “Uh. Will. Will, wake up.” She reaches behind her to shake him.

“Mom?” Graham asks, in a tremulous voice.

“Just a little…” Will mumbles, and tries to pull Angie back under the blanket with him, his hand wandering lazily up her body.

She slaps Will’s hand away and, smiling brightly at the group at the front door, tries to disentangle herself from the couch. “Will. _Will_. Sophie is here. Sophie, your daughter, your favorite and only child, she is here.”

“Sophie.” Will sits straight up, bedhead hair stuck up every which way. “Sophie!”

“Dad?” Sophie asks, sounding just like Graham for one surreal moment.

“O- _kay_. Come on, kids, why don’t we give your parents a couple minutes of privacy,” Poppy says, and herds the kids past the scene of the crime. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for this.”

Angie waits until everybody exits to the kitchen and then whirls toward Will. “Oh my god. What do we tell Graham and Sophie?”

Will rubs his eyes and scratches his back, leisurely comfortable.

“What if we tell them we’re dating?” Will asks, and Angie is so annoyed suddenly. Why would he say something like that? Why is he acting like this isn’t a big deal?

“That was last night. Date night’s over,” she says. “I’m not your pretend girlfriend anymore, Will.”

Will stops moving, just like that. He freezes and stares at her. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Will is silent for long moment, then: “Maybe I don’t want you to be my pretend girlfriend.” He sounds wary as he says it, and god, it hurts even more than Angie was prepared for. She knew that she was going to be rejected, and here it is. This is why you never get your hopes up in the first place.

“I know you don’t want me to be your girlfriend,” she says, stiffly. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

“I… what?”

“You just said you don’t want me to be your pretend girlfriend.”

“That’s because I don’t!”

“You don’t have to keep repeating it! I heard you the first time. I get it, you don’t have to tell me twice.”

“But you don’t seem to understand what I’m saying. I don’t want you to be -”

Angie stomps a foot. “Stop. _Saying_ it.”

“But you’re not _listening_ to me!”

“Why are you yelling at me!”

“Because I want you to be my _real_ girlfriend!” Will snaps.

“What?” Angie asks, taking a step backwards.

“HE SAID HE WANTS YOU TO BE HIS GIRLFRIEND!” Poppy yells from the kitchen. “FOR GOD’S SAKE, ANGIE, GET IT TOGETHER!”

“What?” Angie repeats. What is happening, what is happen -

“WHAT IS _HAPPENING_?” Graham wails, sounding just as bewildered as Angie feels.

Will takes a deep breath and moves a step closer to her. “What is happening is that I like you, Angie,” Will says. His eyes are trained on Angie. “I like you. I really like you. I don’t fake like you, or pretend like you. I _like_ like you.”

Angie is slowly dying and resurrecting over and over again, as the shock spreads through her system. “You… what?”

Will is starting to smile. “I like you so much, Angie, it’s just killing me.”

“ _What_?”

“DON’T MAKE THAT POOR MAN SAY IT AGAIN!”

Will, watching her carefully, takes a second step closer. “So what do you say?”

Angie takes a deep breath in. Her feelings seem indescribable; everything is happening far too fast and not fast enough. So she stops thinking for one moment, closes the remaining distance between the two of them, and lets herself kiss him, sweet and uncomplicated.

She feels Will smile as he kisses her back, and wraps his arms around her.

“I _knew_ it,” Poppy says, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, one arm around Sophie and Graham each.

“Do I have to call you dad now?” Graham asks.

“Slow your roll, son of mine,” Angie says.

“Gross,” Sophie says, wrinkling her nose.

“Fair enough,” Will says, and Angie buries her face in his shirt and laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story and would like to share it, please consider reblogging [this post](https://blithers.tumblr.com/post/190025645603/and-heres-what-i-wrote-for-yuletide-this-was-a) on tumblr or [this post](https://twitter.com/blithers_writes/status/1212892016410935296) on twitter!


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